All posts tagged Bank Automation

So Ben Bernanke can’t get a mortgage refi!! The reason seems to be because he has recently changed his job from a nice stable salaried Federal employee, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, to a freelance job of consulting and making speeches at $250K a pop. So the mass algorithms used to grant mortgages downgrade him so that he cannot refinance a house worth just over $800K. HSA’s position is that granting mortgages out of mass batch processing (that capture has enabled with electronic approvals - supplemented by back office scanning and classification) needs to change to avoid this sort of poor automated decision-making.

The problem is the process. An applicant fills in an electronic form, which then causes a lookup into credit scores – the paperwork follows. Because many mortgages are immediately sold off to Fannie or Freddie – in part because the banks do not want to carry the loan, they have to conform to “the rules.” It is meant to be more efficient – and in some ways it is, but can lead to foolish decisions and lost opportunities as in the above situation. But if we revert to the “old” mortgage application process supplemented by capture automation, a better process and decision making can be achieved – with better customer relations and potentially more services sold.

The key is to process the supporting data at the branch in real time rather than later in the back office. The software classifies, understands, extracts and validates/verifies relevant data from the documents at the time of request. Questions can be asked immediately; more documents can be requested – all under process rules control. New services such as asset management can be offered – surely the average bank would love to manage Mr. Bernanke’s assets?

Why this has not happened to date is partly because the automation tools and infrastructure are not in place and this could be expensive. But the savings and benefits can provide a quick payback. Bank Branch automation makes a lot of sense – contact HSA if you want to discuss this more.

About HSA

Starting in 1989, Harvey Spencer Associates based in New York (tel: +1 631.368.8393) has specialized in technologies used to create, understand and extract meaningful usable information from analog based semi and unstructured data sets. Read More